Match
by Adamant Eve aka anna-neko
Summary: Red X met his. "Game", "Set" and this...


Author's note: Came a little late, this. Sorry! Now… on with this sick and twisted tale.

**Match**

**_Game, Set and this…_**

_"When you dance with the devil, the devil don't change… the devil changes you."_

It was from a movie about porn and snuff films and sickos that got off on sick things. Maybe it doesn't matter. What matters is what it says.

So what was it like, Robin? Dancing with the devil? Dancing with me?

Oh, there was fire, and explosions and I could have sworn there were bats.

Why does that always happen, Robin? Why is it that whenever you get into dramatic, dangerous situations, there would be bats, or something related to it, like a Wayne Enterprises building? It's like you have an Ole Bats reference standby; on call; ready for use. Perhaps your kooky foster-father means more affectionately to you than you let on. Perhaps you could actually remember him fondly?

Nah. How good could a foster father be if you only remember him during the most terrible of times? Not "bad" times, but "terrible" times. Bad is when you miss the deadline for the submission of a term paper. Bad is when you're a dollar short paying for munchies in a drive through. Bad is when you miss the start of a movie by five minutes.

Terrible is when you've jumped off a cliff and you find out you've ran out of rope for your birdarang. Terrible is when you and your friends are stuck in an underwater facility that happened to be collapsing around you. Terrible is when your girlfriend has to marry some Jabba the Hut wannabe in exchange for a planet. Terrible is when, after having saved her from marrying a blob, she decides that the devil is actually more interesting than the bird.

Whatsamatter, Boy Wonder? Couldn't take the heat? Couldn't entirely blame you. I live in hell, you don't. Living in hell, you get used to the heat. You learn how to control Fire. Hold it. That's why I'm so good at what I do. She's the fire in the cold and darkness, drawing creatures to her warmth; burning those who come too close; searing their wings and having them plunge to their deaths.

Some call her a light. A guiding light.

Poetic, but that's sanitizing her; turning her into a harmless, lame symbol of hope. A fire; a raw fire blazing and free could do more than show a lost traveler the way. It lent heat and life, but most of all it could take life. It could be anything it wanted to be. It is powerful. That's why I want her. That's why she is drawn to me. Power calls to power, after all.

Power comes in many forms. It doesn't have to mean you have everything.

She doesn't want everything, Robin. You should know that by now. We both have the capacity to give her something of what she wants. One more than the other? Maybe, but that's largely irrelevant. One or the other, she'll get what she wants from us, even if she has to rip through our chest and tear out our hearts.

So we danced.

I had looked at the figure of Robin, standing beneath the glow of the crescent moon from the decrepit skylight above. He was unmoving, Bo-staff in hand. He had looked like a sentinel, ready to pounce, and as little as I thought of him in many respects, I found myself admiring his warrior skill, yet again, when we jumped, exchanged fists, threw kicks and knocked bones.

I remember laughing as he slammed his bo-staff in my gut, crunching what would have been ribs. "Bat taught you the moves, but you gained the killer instinct all by yourself, didn't you, Wonder Boy? Are you going to kill me? I do, after all, want to take your precious Starfire from you."

That had gotten him pissed. I could tell. I think it doesn't matter what I say about her. I could tell him she's a whore or I could say she's Mother fucking Teresa, and he'd still want to cut my throat out. He doesn't want to hear me saying her name. He doesn't even want to think me saying it.

"Leave her the hell alone!" he had said, attacking me with vicious strikes of his bo-staff.

I had felt his anger; felt his hatred, like it was flowing from him and crawling into me—no, spreading, like a disease. It was so potent. I didn't know whether that was good or bad. Either way, it made me smile.

"I created you!" he said. "I don't know how, but I did, and I could destroy you. I could fucking destroy you, you son of a bitch!"

That's when the fire and explosion—and maybe the bats—came. There was smoke and liquid heat seeping through my suit. There was the splintering of wood and the screech of metal. There was the breaking of glass and the rising of dust.

And he did destroy me. Or he thought he did.

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In this dark, abandoned warehouse, where the shattered iron windows and groaning wood decayed at each passing second, consumed by rust and termites, respectively, the world fell in and hell broke loose.

When the warehouse collapsed in a mingling of fire, dust, wood, metal and glass, we were watching it from outside. We were looking at what once was and we were yet to understand what had become.

Happy now, Boy Wonder?

No.

It isn't happiness for me, either.

"Robin?"

I whirled from where I crouched, the sound of her voice piercing the darkness of my night. "Stay back." I said. "Stay the hell back! I'm not myself. I'm—there's something inside me—"

No! Don't stay back! This is what I wanted. This is what I sought!

She stared back, afraid for only a second, before her eyes showed compassion. I hated that look. I wanted to slap it from off her face. Nobody feels sorry for Red X.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Boy Wonder!

"Robin, please… you have to—" She swallowed, slowly coming towards me. "You have to let me help you. I can help you. I have not told the others. I will keep this between us, but you must let me help."

"I don't need your help! I don't—"

_Have not told the others? _

What hasn't she told the others?

About us. She hasn't told them about us.

She'd known for weeks. Has tried to help for weeks.

You've seen her look over her shoulder; watched her give you strange looks. It happened after you disappeared with the Synothium; when you split up the team to search the city. You've danced with the Boy Wonder before. You've danced with _me. _

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_I created you. I can destroy you. At least I think I could. When you dance with the devil, the devil don't change… the devil changes you._

I was your devil, Red X, the way you were mine.

You wanted her bad. I wanted her just as much. But you had one thing. I had another. Two halves of the same whole? I was whole once, but you came into existence and suddenly I wasn't complete.

I found you that night. In a warehouse like this one, I found you. And we fought. I defeated you… or I would have, if you hadn't the will to keep what was yours: The borrowed life you lived. I should have known you wouldn't go down easy. I should have know you had that part of me; that will of steel; that determination. You were, after all, created in the image and likeness of my dark half. You were made from what I could have been without the light, which is why you needed the Synovium to survive. Which is why when I beat you down, breaking through the suit that was supposed to be impenetrable, the Synovium was everywhere. On my hands, in my eyes; crawling into my mouth, seeping into my skin. It was all over place. You were all over the place.

You needed the Synovium to live, just like you needed a purpose to live. You found the purpose in me. You found the purpose to be her. In your wanting to possess her, you had to possess _me _first.

I had destroyed you; but I created you, too.

We both danced with the devil that night, and we changed each other.

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_But I spoke to you, and you spoke to me!_

As is only proper between two people.

_I crept into her room. Attacked her in the dark._

_We _crept into her room. _We _attacked her in the dark.

_Then why didn't she say something? Why didn't she cry for help? Why didn't she say your name…?_

Beginning to make sense? She'd known something was wrong. She had been trying to figure it out. That night we came into her room, she didn't completely understand, but she refused to freak out—for my sake. For Robin. She wanted to understand, because Robin is important to her.

Remember where you woke up, Red X. Remember the next day when you woke up.

_She brought me home. She brought me…_

Where's home? What do you consider home?

_The tower… the tower is my home…_

We were in my room. We were in my bed. We were home. And after she tucked us in, she left the tower to think. She needed to think. She needed to figure things out. I was out cold when she left, but I woke up and saw her sneaking back into the tower. Maybe she was done thinking, or maybe she was tired. I don't know. We don't know. I waited for her to tell me, but she never did, until I asked her myself.

_She told you it didn't concern you. Why would she say that if it was a total lie? Why would she say such a thing if it actually concerned you in every way?_

Because it was the best way to draw me in. It was the best way to make me _want _to know. Think of it. Think of the surge you felt when she said it was none of my concern…

_Yes, I remember it. There was excitement; anticipation, and I knew right then that no force on earth was going to stop you from finding out. She made you _want _to know. Her brilliance amazes me still. _

At the time, I still couldn't understand much of it. I had a feeling, but I wasn't sure. I couldn't place exactly what was going on, but I knew something was wrong. You, on the other hand… you had no idea. You hadn't a clue, Red X.

_No. I don't believe it. _

You know me better than anyone. You searched my thoughts. You see the bats. You know what I keep in the deepest recesses of my mind.

_No._

That night at the docks…

_No. We spoke. We spoke!_

For the first time. In a long time.

_I was looking at you!_

And I was looking back. It was when my awareness began. When I started to understand what was happening. Starfire showed me; had been trying to show me. But she was afraid what telling me could do, so she let me figure it out by myself.

_You created me. _

Yes, I did.

_You can destroy me. _

Yes, I can.

_Do you want to destroy me, Robin? Is that what you want?_

"Robin, I can help you…"

Her voice. That's her voice. She said she could help us. Do we want to be helped?

_Yes. Let her help. She could show us the way._

She took our hands in hers, the fathomless oceans in her eyes sweeping us in its waves. "Do you see what is happening, Robin?"

"Yes…" we said.

"Do you understand?"

We smiled; predatory. "Do I have to?"

She frowned, her grip tightening. "Of course! Of course you—"

We pulled her close, stunning her into compliance.

Let her go.

_No. You want this as much as I do._

Yes, but that's not the way.

_Then what is the way, Robin? You haven't exactly done anything to change things, have you?_

That's none of your business!

_Maybe not then, but now it's as much my business as it is yours. Besides… I could only do what you let me do. Think what you let me think. Isn't that the way this goes? Isn't that how this works?_

Let her go…

_If you really want me to do that, say it like you mean it._

We kissed her. We held her with fingers digging into her arms. We made her breathless with our lips and tongue. She didn't fight. She kissed back.

We wanted to get closer. We wanted to sink into that pool of warmth and heat. Strike it and light it. Like a match.

Like fire, she gives off warmth. Like heat, she could burn.

_I want to get burned._

No. The warmth; the light is all I need.

_Maybe she wants to give us both what we need. Maybe this'll work out better than we hoped._

I'll destroy you one day, Red X. One day, you will cease to exist.

She pulled away from us, searching our gaze as she called breath back into her lungs.

"Robin?" she whispered.

_She calls to you._

But she isn't sure if I'm the only one who would answer.

She frowned, perhaps seeing the play of dual personalities in our eyes. She's no fool. Never was.

"It is the both of you, isn't it?" she breathed. "Side by side… but how can you exist that way? And when you kiss me—" Her gaze held, but her cheeks were tainted red.

_How delightfully naughty her thoughts are. _

She's right, you know. She can't have us this way. One or the other, or nothing at all.

_She has the power. She said it herself. She can help._

I created you.

_And you can destroy me, but I can destroy you too, Robin. Through her. Only through her. We can only do that through her. Let her choose. Let her choose._

She would choose me.

_Let her choose._

"One or the other, Starfire," we said to confirm her words. "Choose."

"Choose?" she asked, as if it was the worse word in the world. "Will that make it go away? Will that make it right?"

_A valid question._

We sighed.

_No, you sighed. I don't sigh. _

I only do what you let me do, remember?

_We sighed. My, aren't we getting the hang of this?_

"I don't know," we said. "I don't know if that will fix things, but if you choose, one could destroy the other. One could exist and make the other go away. You created us Starfire. You can destroy us. Make us one, or the other."

Her eyebrow arched. She was surprised.

We don't know why, but somehow, she hadn't fully understood how much power she had; how it was all about her, after all.

"Make you…?"

_She likes this idea._

She doesn't. You don't know her.

_The difference between you and me, Boy Wonder, is that I'm not afraid to look at what she could be. The difference between you and me is that I'm not afraid to see._

The difference, Red X, between you and me, is no more. We're one, you and I, and we're a match made in hell.

We laughed. At match, indeed. We traced the line of her jaw with our finger, cupping her face in our hand. "Make us."

She tilted her gaze, the confusion from her gaze ebbing. She rose, turning to leave.

We watched her walk a few steps before she halted and turned her head slightly to the side. "I will. If it will help you, I will choose."

We rose to follow her.

_She can destroy me._

She can destroy us both. We began the game, just like we began _us, _but she made the game her own, just like she made us her own.

_Who's going to win this game then?_

Does it matter?

_It always does._

Then ask yourself the question again: Who's going to win this game?

_And I knew the answer then: She already did._

**End.**

**Really, it is.**


End file.
